


Fetters

by Sporelett



Series: Fuckupstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bloodswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporelett/pseuds/Sporelett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is CRONUS MARYAM and you are in a bit of a bind.</p><p>You mean the term literally in this instance; currently you are leaning up against the greasy, rusted side of some sort of heavy machinery, with your prongs pinned behind you and lashed around some blocky projection that’s jabbing you right between the shoulders. You’ve got a lump on your head the size of a honkfiend egg, and oh yeah, there’s the added issue of the violet-blooded terrorist who’s been grilling you mercilessly ever since you came to. No surprise there, though, since she’s the one who punched your lights out in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fetters

**Author's Note:**

> Some quick background on this series which may come in handy when reading this work: Fuckupstuck is a no-SGRUB Beforus setting where massive environmental damage and civil war have resulted in a polluted, dystopian setting ruled by a government of greenblood bureaucrats. Since this setting is also a bloodswap, Cronus is a jadeblood who works for the government as part of their rainbow drinker programme, and Porrim is a violetblood rebel working to overthrow the government and reinstate a seadweller monarchy.

          Your name is CRONUS MARYAM and you are in a bit of a bind.

          You mean the term literally in this instance; currently you are leaning up against the greasy, rusted side of some sort of heavy machinery, with your prongs pinned behind you and lashed around some blocky projection that’s jabbing you right between the shoulders. You’ve got a lump on your head the size of a honkfiend egg, and oh yeah, there’s the added issue of the violet-blooded terrorist who’s been grilling you mercilessly ever since you came to. No surprise there, though, since she’s the one who punched your lights out in the first place.

          She’s put you through the wringer since then. You feel like one big ache, though you do have the satisfaction of knowing you at least gave her a few knocks of your own, before you got sloppy and let her get close. You can see ragged tears in the sturdy fabric of her jumpsuit, that violet-and-black design identifiable in spite of the beating it’s taken. For once you can also see her face in its entirety, owing to the absence of the helmet you knocked free, and which she apparently has yet to recover. You gotta admit; the view ain’t bad. Sharp eyes, straight nose. Not much hair under that helmet, but that’s no crime. A surprising number of piercings though, now that you’ve had a good look at her. It’s just too bad about that peeved expression she seems so stuck on. The broad will get wrinkles by her 30th sweep at this rate. If she’s not already there, that is. It’s always tough to know with seadwellers.

          “Pay attention!” The snap of her voice rouses you from your idle musings. She doesn’t look pleased at having your attention wander, even if the rest of you is stuck fast on account of being tied to a… what is this, a prong hefter? “Your superior,” she repeats. “I want their name, and the number of agents under their command.”

          “Nubs McGee,” you say, wiggling your hands a bit to test out your bonds. “He’s got half a dozen aging veterans and a sick barkbe _haaaauuugh._ ” Pain drives the words from you as her boot lashes forward to connect with your midsection, just underneath your ribcage. The best you can manage for several long moments is a series of retching sounds as your breathing plane spasms wildly. The violetblood crouches in front of you as you struggle for air and uses her arm to pin your throat against the uneven metal behind you.

          “I’m glad one of us is having such a fun time,” she hisses into your face while you wheeze through your half-crushed windhole. Her fins are fanned wide under her ears, a detail somehow more salient than the fangs just a few inches from your cartilage nub. “Unfortunately, I’m going to need you to get off the train to fucking candy land and start being useful. I am more than willing to provide further incentive-”

          She trails off suddenly, going still as the sound of distant ringing drifts from somewhere in the warehouse. She glances toward the noise and back to you, indecisive. _Better answer it, doll,_ you think. _Could be important. Besides, I’m not going anywhere, right?_

          Apparently she’s willing to risk it. With a final squint in your direction, she straightens and heads towards the noise at a run. You’re guessing her hardware doesn’t make that kind of racket for no good reason, but right now it’s saving your ass. As soon as she turns her back you access your sylladex and withdraw a fine saw the length of your longest finger. Usually you don’t have a use for this kind of low-tech break in tool, but it does a damn good job of breaking you _out_ as well. You’ve cut almost entirely through the rubbery bonds by the time you hear footsteps heading back in your direction. One good tug is all it takes to snap the remaining shred of sturdy polymer. With a muffled groan as you ease your cramping arms out of their unnatural back-bent position, you lurch to your feet and beat it out of there just as the violet is coming around a stack of metal crates. She shouts something, but you don’t even register it. You’re gone.

***

          Five minutes later you’re prowling the junk-filled edges of that same abandoned warehouse, searching the alleys of steel shipping containers and abandoned metal hulks for the dame who is likely doing the same for you. You’ve had enough encounters with this particular seadweller to know that she can be stubborn once she’s on the hunt, but she already bungled her first chance at taking you in for interrogation, and you’re not about to give her a second one. For one thing, you doubt you’d survive another round of her tender administrations. The persistent twinge in your side which heralds at least one fractured rib makes breathing pure misery, and one of your knees is swelling up nicely as well. You’ll have to take her out before your injuries wear you down, and that means getting a move on.

          Tracking her through this maze would be a job and a half, so when you come to a metal staircase ascending to the catwalk which runs along the warehouse walls, you take it. The gloom is thick as cobwebs in an old attic, but you resist the temptation to turn on the lights and shuffle along in the dark, keeping an eye on the stacks of old junk on the ground floor. You think you hear movement from the northwest corner. Palming a flash grenade in your left hand, you creep forward as stealthily as your gimp leg will allow and hope it’s not too late for you to get the drop on her.

          A flicker of motion behind one of the crates has you throwing yourself to the side on sheer instinct, just in time for a narrow beam of white to slice through the air where your chest was a moment ago. You hit the catwalk with a grunt and roll behind a nearby four-wheel device. Another white beam leaves a sizzling hole cut out of the machine’s rear edge. “From amateur torturer to ineffectual markswoman,” you shout from behind your temporary shelter. “You’re not exactly a woman of many talents, are you?”

          “Considering your recent predicament, I wonder what that says about you?” she calls back. When you shift to grab a heavy iron hook resting on a nearby pile of chain, the responding lance of white sears a hole six inches from your hand. You curse under your breath and press closer to the four-wheel device, dragging the hook with you.

          Drawing the breath to shout is more work than you care to spare right now, so your only reply is to chuck the hook away from you, sending it clanging down the catwalk and drawing another laser shot from the seadweller. Without pausing you turn around and lean out to lob your flash grenade in her direction, then duck behind your shelter and shut your eyes tight, covering your ears while you count down in your head. The bang is painful even to your muffled hearing, but as soon as it goes off you’re moving again, withdrawing the chainsaw from your strife specibus and dashing down the catwalk. When you reach the point above her last location you jump down onto one of the crates, rolling to keep the impact from your injured leg, and from there you drop to the floor.

          The rev of the chainsaw when you see her is enough to have her whipping towards you even while she’s still reeling, but you’re too close for it to matter. You dart in, chainsaw leading, and sparks fly as she blocks your downward swing with the body of her rifle. You can’t have her getting her bearings and going on the offensive, so you follow the swing with a swift kick to the gut that sends her staggering. Light is pouring unbidden from your skin as you slash at her neck, working on instinct too fast for her to match. She drops to the ground just in time and rolls to the right. Too slow. You’re on her again, stomping the rifle from her hands as she’s getting back up and chopping down toward the join of her neck and shoulder.

          She lunges for you. The body of the chainsaw thumps against her back just as she barrels into your legs and sends you both sprawling. You lash wildly down at her, but this time she knocks your chainsaw aside, the force of her shove sending it tumbling to the floor behind her and to the left. You manage to knee her in the face and gain your feet just as she’s scrambling upright, but the growling shape of the chainsaw is out of your reach.

          “Failed an ambush against a half-blind riflewoman at close range,” she taunts. “You’re not a man of many talents, are you?”

          “Now that’s just unimaginative,” you complain, and then duck as her fist makes tracks for your face.

          She’s slower than you are, but the troublesome thing about seadwellers is they don’t need weapons to do an honest midblood in. One bad move and your teeth will be decorating the grimy warehouse floor, and much as you admit it could use the improvement, you’d rather not be on the losing side of this particular battle. So you feint left, towards your weapon, and when she moves to intercept you turn on a dime and send a spinning kick towards her side. Beautiful execution, definitely worth a pat on the back on your part.

          If only your damn leg didn’t fold out from under you.

          It takes the punch from the blow, and instead of sending the broad face-first into a steel shipping container, you’re the one taking a header right onto the cracked concrete. You try to roll with it, to get up and back off to look for another opening but oh fuck she’s right there and when she slams you back into the unyielding metal of the warehouse wall it’s like one of your flash grenades going off right inside your skull. You’re still trying to blink the stars from your eyes when she tightens her grip on your neck and hauls you up so you’re face to face. It’s not a comforting sight to come back to; you know murderous intent when you see it, and if looks could kill you would already be dead. Damned if you’ll go out squawking like a cluckbeast on the chopping block, though.

          “What are you waiting for?” you wheeze through her grip. Your arms are limp at your sides; you know with uncanny certainty that if you so much as twitch them she’ll crush your neck like a can of Tab. “Just end it. No more questions. No more games.” It’s getting hard to talk through what’s left of your abused windhole. You make a painful attempt to swallow. “Take this barkbeast out for good. You beat me fair and square.”

          If anything, it seems like all your little speech did was make her angrier. If she was hoping for a coward’s surrender then you’re glad to disappoint her. Government barkbeast or not, you’re still your own man. And although you may not have had much choice in how you lived your life, you can at least decide how you face your own death. She sure is taking her sweet time with it, though. “Chop chop, sweet cheeks, we don’t have all night-”

          “Oh shut up, you bastard,” she says, and kisses you.

          The nice thing about being kissed by the terrorist who’s trying to kill you is that she releases her death grip on your neck. You’re able to breathe as she pulls you close to lock lips, and you manage to avoid shooting yourself in the foot as you successfully stifle the urge to cough in her face. So far so good; you’re still alive, you’re still a lady-killer in at least one sense of the word, and best of all, you still have a chance of ending this night with a tick in the ‘win’ column. You take a risk and slide one hand around the small of her back while she nips gently at your lower lip (you don’t even have to fake the moan that comes out at that), and use your other hand to caress the length of her arm down to where her hand rests on your hip. Playfully, you encircle her wrist with your fingers.

          And lock the titanium cuff you pulled from your sylladex.

          Moving faster than you think you ever have in your life, you pull away from her in an instant and clasp the other cuff onto a mess of sturdy metal piping plunging into the ground beside you. You’re away again in an instant, but even so, you think she might have had you if her first reaction had been to lunge after you. Instead she looks at the shackle on her wrist, snatching at it and pulling away just a heartbeat too late.

          “Sorry babe,” you chuckle as you dance out of range. “You gambled, and you lost.”

          She looks blankly at you for a moment, then yanks again on the metal cuffs chaining her to the wall. The chain doesn’t so much as creak. “No,” she growls, pulling again. “Get me out. _GET ME OUT._ ” When she looks back at you her eyes are as wide and as red as the sun broiling your planet to a slow death. You take an unconscious step back. “ _YOU BASTARD. GET IT OFF. I’LL RIP YOUR LUNGS OUT. GET IT OFF. GET IT OFF!_ ”

          “Can’t do that,” you mutter, not as flippantly as you’d intended. Her only response is a wordless scream. You think that if you came near to fulfill her request she’d break you in half. “I, uh, gotta go.”

          You hightail it out of there with the seadweller’s animal screams following you every step of the way, and you don’t stop until they’ve died down to a whisper. It takes you a minute to call for backup, and a fair while longer for the forces you called to arrive. By the time you’re leading them back to the warehouse something akin to dread is eating a hole in your gut, but you keep moving. _Good boy,_ you think sourly to yourself. _Arf, arf._

          You can’t hear her anymore as you watch your squad-mates file through the entrance and disappear into the gloom, and you wonder if she’s given up or if she’s waiting in the dark to ambush whoever gets near. There’s no way she could have escaped those cuffs. They’re designed specifically to restrain coldbloods, so she’ll be trying to break that chain until she dies of old age, or at least until you do. But still the silence nags at you. When you hear shouts from up ahead you break into a trot, limping along in a damn hurry between the towering stacks of crates. You turn a corner and find the wall where you left her.

          Half a dozen agents surround a scene of pure ruin. The pipes where she was chained are now bent and twisted, some bearing the imprint of bones slammed into them with horrifying force. Violet blood smears the sturdy metal and lies in thin splatters on the walls and floor. Where once the pipe to which she was chained stood there is now a hole, bordered on either side with metal that has been twisted and broken into jagged pieces of scrap. The seadweller herself is nowhere to be seen.

          You sit down on the dirty concrete floor, and stare at the sight for a good, long while.


End file.
